Messages

Review by eFreeware

Messages is a free Android texting app published by Remote Control - TV Remote, TV Cast. It handles the familiar ground of SMS and MMS while adding a set of extras that a stock texting app often leaves out: scheduling, spam blocking, backups, themes and quick replies. The pitch is a faster, tidier inbox for people who text a lot.

That combination is the main reason to consider it. Most phones ship with something that sends a text and not much else, and if you have ever wanted to fire off a message at a specific time, silence a persistent spam sender or keep a copy of a conversation before switching handsets, this app is built around exactly those jobs.

It arrived in May 2021 and was last updated in October 2025, so it is not a project that has been left to gather dust. The install figures and average score suggest a reasonably established app rather than a brand-new experiment, and the features on offer are the sort that matter day to day rather than once in a while.

Scheduling a text so you don't have to remember it

The feature the developer leads with is scheduled messaging. You write a text as normal and set the time it should go out, which the app then handles for you. The obvious use is a birthday or anniversary you know is coming but will probably forget on the morning itself, or a reminder you want a friend or colleague to receive at the start of their working day rather than at midnight when you thought of it.

What I like about this as a headline feature is that it solves a real problem instead of adding decoration. Plenty of messaging apps let you send a text; far fewer let you decide when it lands. For anyone who works across time zones, or who does their thinking late at night and their sending at a sensible hour, that single capability can justify the install on its own.

The developer frames it as a way to avoid missing a special moment, and that is a fair description of what scheduling is for. It is not a complex tool that needs configuring; you pick a time and the app takes over from there. Whether you would use it weekly or twice a year depends entirely on how your messages tend to work.

Photos, voice notes and the in-app camera

Beyond plain text, the app handles MMS, so photos and videos travel alongside your words. There is an in-app camera for capturing something and sending it without leaving the conversation, which is a small convenience but a genuine one when you want to show someone what you are looking at rather than describe it.

Voice messages are supported too, which suits anyone who would rather talk than type, and there is a library of emojis, GIFs and stickers for keeping conversations from feeling flat. None of this is unusual in a modern texting app, but it is the baseline you would expect, and the developer covers it.

The camera detail is worth dwelling on for a moment. Jumping out to a separate camera app, taking the shot, then coming back to attach it is the kind of friction that stops people sharing things at all. Having the capture step inside the messaging app makes the whole exchange quicker, and that is the sort of thing you notice most when it is absent.

Blocking spam, backing up and keeping the inbox tidy

Spam blocking is one of the more useful additions here. The app lets you block unwanted SMS and MMS senders, which is a practical answer to the steady drip of promotional texts and nuisance numbers that accumulate over time. The developer describes this as saying goodbye to bothersome spam, and while no blocking tool catches everything, having it built into the app you already use for texting saves reaching for a separate utility.

Backup and restore is the other feature I would single out. The app can back up your SMS and MMS conversations and restore them later, which matters most at the two moments people actually care about: moving to a new phone and recovering a conversation you deleted by accident. Knowing your messages are not locked to one device is worth a lot to anyone who treats texts as a record rather than chatter.

For day-to-day organization, conversations can be pinned to the top of the list and marked as unread, so a thread you need to come back to does not disappear under newer ones. There is also search by name or phone number, which is the difference between finding an old conversation in seconds and scrolling through months of history hoping to spot it.

Themes, smart replies and searching old threads

Smart Reply offers one-tap responses for quick acknowledgements, the kind of thing that saves a few seconds when someone sends a message that only needs a short answer. It will not replace typing for anything substantial, but for the steady stream of short exchanges that make up most texting, it trims the effort.

Themes let you change the colors and fonts of the messaging interface, which is a cosmetic touch rather than a functional one. Some people will set it once and forget it; others will enjoy making the app feel less like a generic inbox. Either way it costs nothing to ignore if you would rather keep things plain.

Search deserves more credit than it usually gets. Once you have years of messages, finding a specific address, confirmation or phone number is a genuinely useful capability, and the developer has built it around the two things you are most likely to remember: who it was with and what number they use.

What the app asks of you

Messages is free to download and carries advertising. It also offers in-app purchases, so there is a paid element inside the app alongside the free version. If you prefer to know exactly what you are getting before spending anything, that is worth bearing in mind.

The practical requirement is an Android phone. It works with the messages your carrier already delivers, which means the people you text do not need to install anything for your conversations to reach them.

You install it, it takes over your texting, and the extra features sit alongside the ordinary ones. That low barrier is one of its better qualities.

Getting the most out of it without overthinking it

My advice would be to set the backup running before you need it rather than after. The value of a backup is entirely in the moment something goes wrong, and by then it is too late to start. If you are moving phones soon, or you simply have conversations you would hate to lose, that is the first setting I would look at.

Spam blocking rewards a little patience. Rather than blocking the first unknown number that appears, give it a week or two and block the senders that keep coming back. That way you are not cutting off a delivery notification or a one-off message from someone legitimate, and the block list stays short enough to review.

Scheduling is worth trying on something low-stakes first, so you understand how it behaves before you rely on it for a birthday. Pick a message you would send anyway and set it for an hour ahead. Once you have seen it arrive on time, you will know whether it fits how you communicate.

As for themes and smart replies, treat them as optional. They are pleasant additions, but the app's real work is in scheduling, blocking, backups and search. If those four things solve problems you recognize, the rest is a bonus rather than the reason to install.

A capable texting app for people who want more control

Messages is a sensible choice for Android users who find their default texting app too limited and want scheduling, spam blocking, backup and search in the same place they send their texts. It covers the basics properly and adds features that address specific, recurring annoyances rather than piling on novelty.

The trade-offs are straightforward. It is free but ad-supported, and it also offers in-app purchases. The average rating sits at a middling level, which suggests a mixed reception rather than universal acclaim, and anyone weighing it up should treat that as a signal to try it and judge for themselves.

If you text a lot, keep conversations you would rather not lose, or regularly find yourself wanting a message to arrive at a particular time, this app is built for you. If your texting needs are simple and your current app never gets in the way, there is less here to pull you across.

What's new in version 999916002.0

- Fix bugs